


Oceans

by Eurydia



Series: Heartlines [2]
Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Temporary Character Death, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loneliness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Postpartum Depression, Spoilers, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22892233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eurydia/pseuds/Eurydia
Summary: Outside was the decrepit wasteland of the former hospital, where metal I-beams shot out of the rubble like the golden fingers of chiral crystals. Past that were snow capped mountains; wintry pines that gave way to endless seas of white.A pristine heart-shaped lake.
Relationships: Aaron Hill/Lockne (Death Stranding), Heartman/Mama (Death Stranding), Lockne & Mama (Death Stranding)
Series: Heartlines [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618138
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	1. Heartman

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows  
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud  
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows  
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)  
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart  


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

__

\- e.e. cummings, _[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]_

### 

_Two months into the Second Expedition._

Heartman’s footsteps were loud and heavy as he fell into step beside Mama. With his padded Bridges jumpsuit, it felt like he had ten defibrillators hooked onto him. Mama had taken to calling him Rocketman, with his slow gait, bulky silhouette, and frequent calls from his worried wife. But weightless was far from how he felt. Gravity has not been kind to him.

He knew the nickname was in jest. Mama was the only one willing to partner with him on the expedition. The other team, which consisted of Thomas Hucksley and Edward Wallace, their geologist and paleontologist, respectively, were about two waystations ahead of them, unhampered by Heartman’s need to stop and rest every twenty-one minutes. In the month they’ve been together, Mama had always dismissed his apologies, reminding him that being pregnant meant she needed frequent breaks too.

Mama flicked her cuff link to check if they were headed in the right direction. Their next waystation was some fifty miles due west. She walked ahead a bit, then stopped at the peak of a grassy knoll. Tallgrass danced and swayed in the cold breeze around them. Heartman still felt cold under his jumpsuit. He shivered and hugged his elbows closer to his chest.

“There’s a rainbow ahead,” Mama observed. She pointed at a small alcove in the rock to their right. “We should wait the timefall out, just to be safe.”

Heartman nodded. He shifted his backpack slash crashpad slash pain in the arse and prepared to make the trek to the alcove. The skies were a blanket of grey clouds that held the threat of rain. He looked to the alcove with unease. He wanted to keep moving, to not hold Mama back more than he already had—but she was right. Their jumpsuits were timefall resistant, but Heartman didn’t like the prospect of being out in the rain. And with the ever-present threat of BTs…

“It’s okay,” Mama said. She must’ve seen the worried look on his face as they walked. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
“It’s not that...” Heartman lied. He trusted Mama more than anyone on the team, yet he couldn’t shake the fear that he would resuscitate and wake up alone, be left behind. A fear that even his wife and child weren't spared from.  
“I just, um. Don’t like staying in one place for too long,” Heartman muttered, checking the time on his defibrillator. Ten minutes. He hauled himself over to the alcove.  


#### •••

Heartman returned from the Beach and woke to the clamor of rain against rocks. The rain had formed a thin, opalescent waterfall at the alcove’s entrance, and Mama stood near it, watching something through an opening in the water. She hadn’t left him.

There was a blanket covering his body. He looked around the alcove, which was half the size of a private room. The ceiling was covered in stalactites, sharp and thin like whale’s teeth. He got close to one but didn’t touch it, knowing that skin contact would stunt its meticulous formation. They were limestone stalactites formed before the Stranding. Without Edward’s radiometric dating equipment, he wouldn’t be able to determine its exact age. Based on sight alone, Heartman guessed it was well over a thousand years old.

“Hey, I’m here,” Mama hadn’t moved from her spot by the waterfall. Her smile seemed sincere enough, and Heartman returned it. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yes. Thank you,” Heartman searched the floor for any fallen stalactites. When he spoke, the striated walls echoed his voice. “I got distracted by these rock formations. I wonder if Edward stopped by,” he found a stray one in a darkened corner of the cave and held it against his cuff light.

He joined Mama’s side, stalactite still in hand. When he neared, she gestured to him if she could take a closer look. She gingerly turned it over in her small hands, a thin specimen roughly the size and length of her arm, then laughed. “You and Ed are the only people I know who get excited over... _sticks_ ,” she laughed. “It’s so small compared to the ones on the ceiling.”

Acid rainwater was more interesting, he supposed.  
“No one,” Heartman began, taking the ‘stick’ away from her. “Not even the rain...has such small hands.”  
Her eyes flickered with recognition. “Cummings.”  
He gave her a thumbs up and twenty likes. Mama laughed once more. She resumed peeking through the waterfall like they were sheer curtains. The afternoon light fell on her face softly, illuminating the nearly invisible frames of her glasses.  
Heartman stood closer to her. Her laugh from earlier reminded him of Miriam.  
“The rain is a prominent feature of many Pre-Stranding romance films, poetry, books. Walking in the rain, kissing in the rain. But those were the days when the rain wasn’t trying to kill you,” he explained, smiling.  
“Wait, you like _romance_ movies?” she asked, as if he had revealed some dark secret. Heartman wanted to ask what brought on such incredulity. Perhaps because he was a man, and by virtue that meant he could only enjoy romance films of a titillating nature. Or, in her bespectacled eyes, he simply didn’t look the part of a romantic—which, to him, was a greater tragedy.  
“My wife hates them. I _love_ them,” he exclaimed. “They warm my cold, oft-dead, heart-shaped-heart.”  
“I never thought you were the type,” Mama moved away from the entrance and leaned her hip against the wall. “You’re like Lockne. She eats that stuff up.”  


Heartman let the brief silence fill with rain. It was always fascinating to discover how his twin comrades differed, no matter how slight the difference. Hitherto, he thought they were identical in every respect save for eye color. He thought of asking Mama for her opinion on romance, but it felt too personal to ask.

“Quite the opposite,” he replied, at length. “Romance is difficult when you’re living in twenty-one minute intervals.” 

Mama smirked at him. She moved away from the wall then nudged him on the shoulder. “Difficult. Not impossible.”

Heartman gave her another thumbs up and twenty likes. The rainfall crescendoed into a loud clatter, then quieted down before stopping entirely. The waterfall was reduced to a single stream of runoff. He looked to Mama with determination in his eyes as he approached the entrance. Sunlight leaked through the grey clouds and fell in streaks on the uncharted landscape ahead. They were miles from the next waystation, yet Mama wore an eager smile on her face. 

“Where were we?” he asked, smiling back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Oceans - Seafret](https://eurydia.tumblr.com/image/612255772780396544)  
> Promo art for part two: a [selfie](https://eurydia.tumblr.com/image/612255772780396544) Mama and Heartman took during the Second Expedition.
> 
> "Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands" is from the poem, [_somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond_](https://poets.org/poem/somewhere-i-have-never-travelledgladly-beyond) by E.E. Cummings.
> 
> I started off writing poetry; Cummings is one of my influences. I highly recommend his work!  
> Thank you for your continued support <3


	2. Mama

Mama turned Sam’s new cuff link over in her hands. She kept the base model intact as much as possible, same dead weight, same confining style. It felt wrong to call it a cuff link, as if it was an accessory. It was a cuff in every sense of the word, heavy. Constricting. With a timid touch, she pulled the hook attachment out: chiralium gold, sharp enough to draw blood. 

The sharpness made her entire body tense. Mama placed her finger on the tip of the blade. She pressed down and waited until she felt a prick, pinch; something. Anything. But her finger remained unscathed. No blood, no pain, no scar. Her skin was as unblemished as the day she was born. 

She hadn’t felt anything in over a year. Initially, she was elated. Nine grueling months had culminated to this: a life without pain, suffering, loss. It was what Lockne would’ve wanted. It was what she wanted. But with it came a startling realization: 

Was a life without pain a life at all? 

It was pain that compelled her to conceive a child. Pain that gave her pregnancy and childbirth meaning. Pain that made her long for her sister in cold, starless nights. Pain’s avoidance, alleviation, and acceptance made sacrifices all the more profound. It was pain that gave her life meaning. Her sister had taught her that.

The twins retained no physical scars from their childhood. They had stories of broken bones, bloody bruises, cuts, falls. But that was all they were: stories. From her research, she figured out that their cells didn’t necrotize, even as they did undergo apoptosis—programmed cell death. They swore to keep the unique property of their cells a secret, fearing that their cell line would meet the same fate as Henrietta Lacks: an immortal cell line that was taken then cultured in labs without consent. It was used in labs way before the Stranding and remained in use today; Deadman and Heartman had some stored in their respective labs. 

She found nothing in Bridges' archives that matched her unique cell profile. The closest match was of repatriates, like Sam. 

Mama didn’t know if her and her sister were repatriates. It was for this reason that the afterlife was a divine mystery to her, a miracle. Never one to believe in something without proof, she couldn’t bring herself to believe in an afterlife. There were numerous accounts of the Beach, which corroborated all if not most of Heartman’s theories: the Beach was a physical place both the living and dead could visit.

She might not believe in an afterlife, but she believed in miracles. 

Mama drew a breath, then listened for Ellie’s gentle, unlabored breathing. She searched for the faint outline of her umbilical cord and gently held it in one hand, the open hook in the other. There was a good chance they wouldn’t feel anything. They were connected. If Mama felt no pain, then…

Ellie stirred. She started to float down on her own, her little limbs stretching outward. Mama set the cuff down and breathed hard, freeing her arms to cradle her baby. She watched small hands reaching for her and gave a pained smile. The child giggled. 

“I love you,” Mama murmured. It didn’t feel enough, so she said it again. Certain and true, with her whole heart. 

“I love you, my little star.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line: [[Biography.com]](https://www.biography.com/scientist/henrietta-lacks)  
> [[Apoptosis on Wiki]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis)


	3. Heartman

Heartman returned from the Beach to find Mama by his window, her back turned against him. She was rocking her arms back and forth, her voice soft and melancholy, like a siren without a sailor.

He laid back down, closed his eyes, and listened to her voice. His way of giving her privacy in the otherwise wiretapped room. Bridges logged every single one of his cardiac arrest times, and any deviation from the standard would mean a surprise holocall from Deadman, Die-Hardman, or both. This was his life. They meant well, but he felt undeserving of their concern. His payment came in the form of information: about the Stranding, the Beach, any spur-of-the-moment theories that popped into mind. But his work had been stalled as of late. 

Heartman waited for Mama to finish her song. Afterward, he reset his hourglass, tapping it against the wood louder than usual to make his presence known. When Mama turned to face her, she was no longer cradling her baby; the crib must’ve been far away, out of his holocall’s view. 

“You’ve caught me with my pants down,” Heartman smiled. Mama quickly looked him up and down, did an about-face, then snickered. He found the whole display endearing, until he looked down.

He hadn’t changed out of his pool shorts. 

“Y-you don’t like Heartman’s heart-patterned shorts?” he stammered, laughing nervously as he searched for his clothes. This wasn’t the first time he had gone from healing spring straight to his divan; dressing and undressing took up far too much time. It was convenient for his clothes to have gone missing when he had a guest over...

“How many heart-themed things do you _have?_ ” Mama joked. She was talking to fill the silence. Heartman would’ve given her a hundred likes if he wasn’t preoccupied.

“Let’s see, um, I’ve socks, ties, a mug, and oh—” his clothes were strewn behind his desk. He threw on his pants in a hurry. In his haste, he bumped into his desk, dislodging an unframed photograph wedged between some paperwork. He took it between thumb and forefinger, smiling at it as he spoke.

“Specs. Heart-shaped specs,” he finished, sliding the photograph back under his papers. He hadn’t bothered to button up his shirt all the way. Wires hung around his chest loosely, leaving his scar in full view. Mama peeked over her shoulder then turned to face him. He didn’t mind her staring at him,—at his scar, rather. It was as much a part of him as his defibrillator. He wasn’t ashamed of the scars of his past. 

His shorts, however...

“I’m sorry you had to see that. Have—have you been waiting long?”

“It’s fine. Really,” Mama walked up to him slowly, her toothy smile lighting up the room. Her gaze fell to his scar. She grew quiet for a beat, then murmured, “I’m glad I got to see it.

“Um, I called because,” she flicked her wrist, pulling up a holo. “I finished the design data for the AED I was developing for you. I know you said to prioritize Sam, but I can multitask. Besides...I finished his project ahead of time.

“So, standard voltage for defibrillators, waterproof case, and adjustable volume control. I kept the mute function, even though I don’t recommend you use it.” 

The new defibrillator was half the size of his current one, still yellow with a small red heart on its surface. It distorted briefly before opening, displaying all its contents and the materials necessary to print them. He had enough materials to print ten, if he was so inclined. He took a closer look at the circuit board, which slowly rotated before his eyes. It resembled a microscopic metropolis, with wires for roads, and cubes of varying heights for skyscrapers. As he listened to her list out the specifications, he felt a smile tugging at his lips. 

“I wanted to work on this, just in _case_ ,” she winked at him. “Something hap—Sam. Sam needs something. From me. What do you think?”

“A waterproof case? That’s enough to set my sore heart racing!” Heartman gave her a well-deserved thumbs up and twenty likes. “Now I don’t have to unhook myself whenever I shower. Which I seldom do these days,” he said, immediately regretting it.

Heartman missed this. He missed her, when she would share her findings with the whole room, her face alight with the sheer joy of someone who loved creating things. She was a _homo faber_ , through and through.

“Yep. I can check designing an AED off my list, and get to see you in those shorts more often. It’s a win-win,” she said.

A compliment. She had just given him a compliment, so soon after he had made a fool of himself. He wasn’t sure how to respond to Mama, exactly. He has owned those same heart-patterned shorts for five years, and it didn’t do his skinny legs any favors. But she wanted to see them...again? His heart continued to race, which he presumed was residual excitement from seeing the design data. The last compliment he received was from Deadman. Heartman wore a solid black tie to a Bridges HQ meeting once, and the doctor had taken notice of it. _Looking sharp, Heartman! Now we match._

That was two years ago.

“I’ll give it to Sam and have him drop it off to you,” Mama said. “He should be here any day now.”  
A heartbeat passed, then another. “I miss this,” Heartman said.  
Mama tilted her head, puzzled but smiling. “Missed what?”  


“ _This_ ,” he wanted to leave it at that, see if she could follow his train of thought. His condition forced him to plan most of his explanations well in advance; at present, however, he had no plan. He wanted to speak from his heart. To speak not as a man who died every twenty-one minutes, but as a colleague. A friend. Or perhaps something more—but he preferred not to dwell on such matters for very long.

“We made a pretty good team. You and I.”

Mama blinked at him, the words leaving an impression. What kind, he could only imagine. Eventually, her lips parted to reveal a smile, which didn’t reach her eyes. 

“We were,” she replied.

The words lingered in the air like fine dust, always present but only visible at a certain light. In this light, it was a welcome sight, something that warmed his heart. He had always appreciated her companionship, yet it was the first time he had acknowledged it. Among his old expedition friends, she had been the most difficult to distance himself from. 

Heartman took a moment to gather his thoughts. Her knit brows told him she was doing the same. When the right words finally seized him, they stumbled out of his lips awkwardly. 

“Mama, I’m sorry for—”  
“There’s something you should—”  
“You go first,” Mama urged. Heartman gestured otherwise, but she insisted. He sat down on his divan, and she pulled up a chair next to it, so that her holo appeared to sit beside him. She absentmindedly played with her cuff link, the loose half rattling against metal. Heartman reached in front of her and turned the hourglass over in his hands. Its chiralium sand defied gravity, the flow stopping at the neck.

“I’m sorry,” Heartman confessed. “I never told you the story behind my sudden disappearance.”  
“You didn’t have to,” she watched the hourglass flowing sideways. “You miss them. You miss her.”  
“More than you can ever imagine.”  
“But why did you—” Mama started abruptly, but didn’t finish. When she began again, her voice had lost its initial sharpness. “You could’ve stayed at HQ. You didn’t have to leave.”

Heartman smiled, or tried to. His eyes, watery and on the verge of tears, betrayed him. “I wanted to. All this time, I fear I’ve just been searching for reasons to stay,” he admitted. Quietly, “If I stay, it would make leaving all the more painful.” 

He wanted to say more, wanted to tell her the truth. _I am dying._ The words threatened to spill out of him; three years worth of explanation waiting to be spoken, like a stream of consciousness flowing onto a page all at once. _I am dying and there is nothing I can do._ Emotions flooded the lonesome shores of his mind: pain, sadness, betrayal, frustration. He set the hourglass on its side, then ventured to ask her a question that had been troubling him since she first called.

“Mama. You know the exact location of my lab,” Heartman began, in a staccato that made him sound more resentful than he truly was. “You know how to find me. If you didn’t, Deadman would’ve told you in a heartbeat. 

“Why didn’t you come visit me?” he asked, his voice an anguished whisper.

Mama pursed her lips and looked down. “I can’t. Even if I wanted to.” 

She met his eyes. Heartman’s chest tightened, and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t his time yet. They had stared at each other this way once before, when they stood before the mournful gaze of the Madonna. If she was watching over them now, he wondered if it would be in judgment or pity, for there was enough suffering between them to canonize two saints: Mama, the patron saint of mothers; Heartman, of the stranded.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. In speaking from his heart, he had uncovered a deeply buried truth, a facet of himself that he hadn’t seen since he lost Miriam. Had he been waiting for Mama, all this time, without realizing it? Had he been longing to see her, looking forward to her call, just so he could hear her voice? 

Mama didn’t take his eyes off him as she held up her half-cuffed hand. She placed it over his chest where his scar was. He looked down, felt warm tears rolling down his face. 

“I wish I could feel you,” she whispered.

Heartman moved his cuffed hand until it was superimposed against her smaller one. His gaze slowly returned to her. Even behind glasses, he could see the fractal blue of her eyes. He was older, and time had left behind wrinkles, sunspots, and scars on his skin. But Mama’s face bore no lines or blemishes; no moles or freckles he could commit to memory as he studied her delicate features. 

He decided that hers was a face he could stare at for twenty-one minutes and not feel like he had wasted a single second.

“ _One minute remaining, please—_ ” Heartman groaned then muted his defibrillator. “Sorry. I thought I muted it.” 

Mama tore her hand away as if she had caught a spark from his wires. “I—I forgot I had to finish something else for Sam. Before he gets here,” she said, like an afterthought. 

Her holo abruptly blinked out. Heartman was left alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art of the photograph from Heartman's desk: [[Selfie from the Second Expedition]](https://eurydia.tumblr.com/image/612255772780396544)
> 
> Doodle of Heartman wearing heart-shaped glasses~ [[Hearteyes man]](https://eurydia.tumblr.com/image/610983298443952128)
> 
> ~~I don't have a drawing of him in heart-patterned shorts yet [-20 likes sound] but I might draw it in the future, stay tuned <3~~  
> 4/23/20 - [behold the heart-patterned shorts](https://66.media.tumblr.com/3a3f5a111a88345d22971423c8640af1/68380a74e9494a54-ed/s1280x1920/0e5739bff6e679ee53ec5c5d2ec9e9a8d34ba552.png)  
> 


	4. Målingen and Lockne

The sisters watched the black and white screen coruscating in front of them. The white outline of Elorza appeared on the monitor, her tiny form curled into a ball. Målingen smiled at the small bundle of soundwaves that would soon bring light into their dark world. 

“My little star,” Målingen murmured. The physician held the ultrasound transducer steady against her belly, smiling.  
“She looks healthy.”  
Lockne snapped a picture with her cuff link. A rare smile rested on her face. “Only one?”  
“Only one,” she glanced between the two of them. “No twins.”  
Målingen tugged at her gown nervously, then exhaled. “Good. That’s good…” she didn’t realize she had been sitting up until the physician eased her back down.  
“ _Good?_ ” Lockne shot. The word, said through clenched teeth, made Målingen uneasy.  
“You’re all set,” the physician remarked, in a stern voice that cleared the air. On her way out, she smiled at them. “Give me a call if you have any questions.”  


The door shut behind her, leaving the two alone. Lockne leaned against the window, her face hidden, shoulders squared. Målingen felt the tension radiating from her. The room, once a place of solace and comfort, suddenly turned thief. Målingen looked to the door then shifted on the cold bed. She needed Lockne’s help to get up.

“Why are you against having twins?” asked Lockne, an edge to her voice. Lately, she has been the more irritable of the two. Målingen chalked it up to their connection: both of their bodies were changing, even if only one of them was expecting. 

Målingen sighed. They knew the signs of an impending argument. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she muttered.

Lockne stomped to her sister’s bedside and clutched the railing, hard. “Just admit you hate being my twin. I can feel it anyway.”

Målingen could hardly look at her sister after that. Lockne had instigated this, stoked the fire of her frustrations and set the words alight. _Admit you hate being my twin. Admit you hate_ me. 

“I never said that,” Målingen retorted, trying to maintain her composure. The bed shook. She couldn’t tell if it was her or Lockne. “I never said that. You always do this. Always...”  
Lockne clenched the railing so tightly her knuckles turned white.  
“Do _what?_ ”  
“You think you know how I feel. You know every move I’m about to make, every word I’m about to say.”  
“That’s—”  
“Not true? Just now, when the doctor was here. You were expecting me to want twins. Like you,” Målingen’s voice rose an octave. “Just because _we’re_ twins—and we both have DOOMS—doesn’t mean I’m like you.” 

Målingen fiddled with her cuff link as she spoke. The metal felt colder and heavier than before. Any tighter and her thin wrist would snap off. She looked at her sister and said nothing, letting their shared thoughts take over. 

_You can feel everything._ But true empathy, true love—these demanded more than shared emotion. It demanded acceptance, of flaws and fallibilities, of every shade of anger: from the dark umber of frustration to the vibrant red of hatred. One does not love the stars without first accepting the darkness.

Their dark world had long imposed a sense of homogeneity on them, a sameness that threatened to reduce them into a single being. A solitary _ka_ split between two _has_ , like a lost soul searching for its other half. It was this that put them at odds with one another. Lockne wanted them to be whole. Mama did not. She wanted to be her own person. But how could she be herself, when her every thought was entangled with another’s? Yes—their sorrows, joys, fears, longings were the same, but it did not mean _they_ were the same. Their sorrows were different weights, their crosses made of different material. Steel was heavier than wood, and everyone liked to think their crosses were made of steel.

Målingen thought hers was, too. But she could not tell if she was carrying Lockne’s or her own. 

The fire that burned in Lockne’s voice turned to smolders the moment she registered their thoughts. When she spoke again, her words were ash.

“...I know I’m a terrible sister, okay?” said Lockne, letting go of the railing. “I’m selfish. I see the worst in everyone. The worst in you.” 

“You’re not a terrible sister,” Målingen corrected. “Do you hear me? You’re not.”

She stared down at her belly. Tears dotted her gown as she tried to steady her breathing. Every fiber of her body remained rigid. The urgency to defend herself, to fight back, still burned the back of her throat. Then, unbidden, Lockne reached for her sister’s hand and held it. Their breathing steadied, became one. 

They stared at one another for a while, holding hands. 

“I can’t wait to see her,” Lockne finally said, smiling at her sister’s belly. “To hold her in my arms. To raise her together. 

“With you.”


	5. Lockne

Lockne stopped by the Distro center. She walked through the main sorting room, where the city entrance, a blinding light at the end of a tunnel, was visible through paned glass walls. The dimly-lit interior was maintained by autonomous bots, which opened, labeled, and sorted packages on conveyor belts day in, day out. Metal walls amplified the screech of a hundred conveyor belts running all at once. She covered one of her ears. A few bots whirred and squeaked as they moved, as if crying for help. Some stopped to acknowledge her presence, but many carried on with their designated tasks. Lockne had a feeling they would go on even if the room was submerged in tar. 

Humanity has made great strides in artificial intelligence since the Stranding, creating bots that could deliver cargo across the country and back again. But they were far from perfect; almost every day she took calls about packages that were either nearly or completely destroyed. It would take decades before they develop AIs capable of comprehending human concepts like death, religion, the Stranding. She could not see these cargo carriers engaging in intelligent conversation with her any time soon. 

She studied one of the packaging bots. It was a strange little thing, just a pair of arms and legs with a ball-shaped camera for a torso. One arm was equipped with a label printer, the other with sensor tape dispenser. In swift motions, it scanned then taped every package it came across on the belt. It did this endlessly, for its entire existence, without complaint. The bot, as if suddenly aware it was being watched, halted its task then stared at Lockne. It tilted its ‘head,’ blinked once, then fell back into routine. 

A booming voice came from the doorway. It was the mechanic. “You looking for someone?” he asked, his voice strangely stiff for a human.  
Lockne looked around before approaching. “Have you seen Aaron?”  
The mechanic pulled up a holopad. He scrolled through it for a bit, then shook his head. “No, ma’am. He’s not in today.”  
“Any idea where he might be?” Lockne asked, feeling sheepish for not knowing. It wasn’t like Aaron to disappear without telling anyone, especially not her.  
“Sometimes he steps out to get some air,” the mechanic pointed at a stairwell across the room. The door was open slightly, a strip of sunlight streaming from it. “Watch your step. These bots don’t know personal space.”

Lockne kept the words in mind as she made her way to the stairwell. The machine shop boasted plenty of room, enough to fit a labyrinthine arrangement of conveyor belts and metal pallets. Still, it crawled with bots that came a little too close for her liking.

The door creaked loudly. Lockne stepped outside and tugged her collar closer to her face, the cold wind nipping at her skin. She saw Aaron sitting at the apex of the roof, his headset wrapped around his neck like a scarf. 

She walked with a heavier gait to make herself known. “There you are,” Lockne remarked, taking a seat beside him. Aaron sat by the dim floor light, back arched and book open on his lap. She recognized it as the leather bound one from before. 

“You were looking for me?” he asked, surprised. “Why the look on your face?” 

Whatever ‘look’ Lockne had been making turned into confusion. She waited for Aaron to elaborate, but all he did was gesture at his face repeatedly, expecting her to know exactly what he meant. 

“Do you always look worried,” he shifted to face her fully. “Or only when it’s with me?”

The dawn erased all the lines on his face, leaving behind the light gray of his stubble. He looked youthful, and a spark danced between his eyes—or was it the sunlight?

She beamed at him, letting the question drift into the morning air, unanswered. Despite the solace, their conversation two nights prior loomed over her head like timefall clouds, waiting to rain down on her. She looked up at the mostly clear sky in search of them but found none. The sky blazed orange with the promise of a new day, the sparse grey clouds unable to hold rain. 

“It’s not like you to run off without telling me,” Lockne observed.  
“Don’t worry. If I run off, you’ll be the first to know,” Aaron leaned back on his palms. “Might even ask you to come with me. Call it, ‘The Chronicles of Aaron and Lockne, the Great Embarkation.’”  
“ _Embarkation?_ ”  
“It’s a word. I looked it up,” he said with the proudest smirk on his face.  
She felt an eye-roll coming on but decided to play along.  
“And where would we go in this ‘great embarkation’ of ours?”  
He looked out at the distant snow-capped mountains, tracing a trail with his eyes. “Anywhere. West, I guess.”  
She squinted at him knowingly. “You just want to follow Sam.”  
Aaron smiled down at his book. She expected denial, so when there wasn’t any, laughter overcame her.

_The Great Embarkation_ did not roll off the tongue at all, but he seemed so proud of the title that she couldn’t help but picture it. Her and Aaron, in their Bridges jumpsuits, exploring the wilderness of the west. Though her expedition days were far behind, the wanderlust remained. She looked out at the snowy peaks and wondered what laid beyond; what awaited them across the tar belt. She saw herself crossing the black sea with Aaron. The thought that Målingen and Elorza could be waiting for her on the other side filled her with equal parts sadness and hope.

They laughed together for a few moments; the kind of laughter exchanged between two friends, heady and unrestrained. Aaron’s laughter winded down to a parted, breathless smile.  
“I didn't know—"  
“I think it’s—"  
“You go first,” Lockne added, quickly. He fell quiet, suddenly reluctant to speak again. 

Aaron dropped his gaze, pressing his lips into an even thinner line. “I’ve known you for years and...I didn’t even know you had a sister,” he murmured.  
“I could say the same about you,” she admitted. It took seeing her packages to finally open up to him. Lockne didn't blame Aaron for not knowing much about her life, but felt guilty for not knowing anything about his. It took hours for her to find him up here, a place he seemed to frequent.  
“Is this where you go when you’re not at your office?” Lockne asked.  
“Yeah, I um. I sit out here and read. When it’s not raining,” Aaron gently lifted his book with both hands, then flipped through the pages. Some were dogeared, the passages highlighted in various colors. “Actual books, made of _paper_ ,” he gave her a sidelong glance, then smirked.  
Lockne shoved his arm playfully. “You’re such a Luddite.”  
"Hey, I’m not saying all new tech is bad. I write emails all the time. I just prefer my books to be old school,” he laughed, setting the book between them. Etched on the leather, in pious gold letters, was _Song of Solomon._  
“Are you religious?” she wondered, her gaze flickering from the book up to his eyes.  
“My dad was. Me...not so much,” he gave a small, ironic laugh at this then asked, “You?”  
Lockne gazed at the sky, searching for something. Or someone. “I believe in an afterlife. A heaven, hell. Purgatory,” she mused. “Miracles.”  
“Yeah. I hear you,” Aaron sat up, then pulled his knees to his chest and leaned on them. “I pray sometimes. For you,” he paused. Abruptly, “Sam. Amelie. The Director. All the fellas from the first expedition.”

Lockne was flattered by the admission. Not knowing what to say, she offered him a smile. It seemed to make him more flustered, so he went on, his voice up a pitch. 

“Most parents tell you bedtime stories about—I don’t know, sunshine and singalongs. I got to hear about burning bushes, red seas. How to _not_ piss Him off. Exciting stuff.  
“Dad wanted me to become a priest. But that was his dream, not mine,” the ironic smile returned, a half-smirk that formed a dimple on his cheek. There was a mole near his cheekbone, one that she never noticed before. “The teachings are still with me though,” he gave a noncommittal shrug.  
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”  
“Both. Sometimes neither. Most stories tell you that this is good, that is bad. If you do bad things, that makes you a bad person,” he said all this with gravitas, despite the simplicity of the words. “Life isn’t like that.  
“Bottom line, some people aren’t _just_ good or bad. We all have a little darkness inside us. Hell, even angels sin. That’s why I think no one is beyond redemption—not even demons like Abezethibou,” Aaron ran his fingers along the book’s inscription. “Or whoever was behind the attacks on Middle Knot and South Knot.” 

Lockne couldn’t help but glare at him. He couldn’t have meant it all. Yet Aaron met her gaze, undaunted. There was a certainty in his eyes, telling her he was ready to defend his words. Anger curdled in the pit of her stomach, her throat tightening with an urgency to contradict him, to tell him how wrong he was—that the person who took Daniel away from her was beyond redemption. 

Her lips parted, but no words fell. Shame took pain’s place in her belly, stone-heavy. Aaron lost his family too, and still held that belief. He believed that the person who took his father and sister away wasn’t beyond redemption. That they could be forgiven, somehow. Locke couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why. 

He was a better person than she could ever be. 

“You’re not a bad person, Lockne,” he murmured, at last, snapping her out of her thoughts. “I think you know that...you just don’t wanna believe it.” 

“But why do I always feel like I’m atoning for something?” she asked. It wasn’t directed at Aaron, but to whomever resided above the chiralium skies, past the stars. The one who allowed her fiancé, child, and sister to be taken from her, who let her world shatter into glass shards, sharp and irreparable. Since she lost Målingen, she had been picking up the shards with her bare hands, and even the smallest of pieces drew blood. 

Her thoughts would’ve consumed her entirely, had Aaron not held his hand out for her to take. He had stood up, the sun directly behind him, outlining his jumpsuited figure in gold. She stared at his hand then looked up at his face. He was smiling.

“Come with me,” Aaron said. It wasn’t a question. “Let me show you something.” 

The weightlessness of his words drew her in. And the way he looked at her—as if taking his hand were the most important thing in the world to him—made her feel wanted. Above all, it reminded her that she wasn’t alone.

She smiled then took his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Stars - Alessia Cara](https://open.spotify.com/album/3rDbA12I5duZnlwakqDdZa?highlight=spotify:track:5k2E6JsWD8swiWYD2dU6hM)  
>    
> Honestly I didn't know what "[embarkation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarkation)" was until I read Aaron's email, lol. He's so silly, I love him.


	6. Mama

_Three months into the Second Expedition._

Mama laid on the grass beside Heartman’s body. Going against his ‘dying’ wish, she had dragged him from his original resting place, a jagged, moss-covered boulder over to a soft patch of grass, half bathed in sunlight. The sun glinted off his glasses, turning one of its lenses silver. She let her hair down, closed her eyes. The back of her eyelids glowed crimson in the morning light. There were two minutes and sixteen seconds left on his AED, but every passing second felt like hours. 

Out of sheer boredom, she switched glasses with him. As soon as she put his on, Heartman’s hand turned into a thumbs down. He took twenty likes away from her. Somehow. She checked the vitals on his cuff link. Yep—still dead. 

“You don’t need these right now."  
He returned her likes. He was a strange, strange man. They hadn’t encountered a BT yet, but she had a feeling that that wouldn’t be the strangest thing they would see on this expedition. After two minutes, he rose from the dead.  
“Now I do.”  
“Okay, you are seriously starting to scare me,” Mama said, shifting to make room for him. Heartman raised her glasses on his face, wiping tears from his eyes. 

The sight of her glasses on his face made her happier than she cared to admit. It looked...right. Like it belonged on his face more than hers. Or maybe she was just glad to have finally met someone who had worse vision than she did. The grass bent and fisheyed all around her, magnifying everything from Heartman’s spotty forehead to the crisp blades of grass behind him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Heartman said. He blinked at her several times, finally noticing her little prank.  
“...What?” Mama teased.  
“What do you mean _what_?” he tried to look upset, but his smile betrayed him. “You nicked my specs while I was on the Beach!”  
“I was going to give them back,”—she wasn’t— “eventually.” She raised her cuff link to snap a picture. Or tried to; the next few seconds were spent trying to frame the picture to include Heartman’s entire face.  
“...Shall I?” he offered. “I have longer arms.”  
“Are you saying I’m short?”  
“Well, I—”  
“Heartman—,”  
“I didn’t expect you to take—”  
“ _Heartman_ ,” she shoved his shoulder gently. “It was a joke. Take the picture before I lose you again.”  
He gave a soft laugh at not seeing it sooner. “Of course.”

They packed up for the next leg of their trip. He was awfully quiet after some of his visits from the Beach. Mama never knew if it was better to ask or leave him to his thoughts. If it was anything like their DOOMS nightmares, the visits must take a lot out of him—mentally and physically. As they walked together, the intermittent crunch of leaves and Mama’s soft humming filled the silence.

“We are _so_ blind,” she said, pushing up Heartman’s glasses on her face. It kept sliding down her nose. “For the record, your vision is way worse than mine.”  
“I wasn’t aware this was a competition,” he replied. There was a hint of a smile on his face. “I don’t quite understand the stipulation for winning. The one with the worst vision, or...best vision?”  
“Fragile was right,” Mama shook her head in disappointment. “You do take everything too seriously.”  
Heartman stopped walking. His face suddenly took on a serious demeanor, and he looked like he was about to launch into a long winded explanation about why he took things so seriously. Or why she hasn’t given back his glasses. 

“I believe the honor of taking things too seriously belongs to none other than Sam Porter,” he began. “Despite my classification of him as a _Homo ludens_ , one who shapes the world through metaphorical acts of play...he takes himself rather seriously. I’m sure you’ll agree. But I digress.”

He took off ‘his’ glasses and brought them up to the light. “I would like my specs back if you don’t m—”

Mama broke into a jog, giggling. Unlike Sam, her acts of play were not metaphorical. If she did this with Lockne, she would lose it; but she knew Heartman would take it in stride. She ran farther ahead but still within earshot of him.

“Wait—I can’t—” Heartman took off after her, panting. For a moment, she couldn’t hear anything but her footsteps, her laughter. She lost herself in the breathlessness of morning; the heady beauty of the landscape, sprawling with the vibrant greenery of hillsides and prairies. It wasn’t the starlit skies she dreamed of in her childhood, not the galaxies that swirled in her daydreams. But it was beautiful and endless and liberating, all the same. 

In the middle of it all, Mama heard a voice she hardly recognized.

“Please don’t go.”

Mama stopped running. It was the first time she heard him speak that way, strained. Afraid. She knew not to push him too hard, but didn’t know to what extent until now. 

When she turned around, Heartman was flushed but smiling.  
“...You’re taller. You have longer legs,” she turned around quickly. “Keep up with me.”  
He let out an exasperated laugh. “Not going to let that one go, are you?”  
“Nope.”

Mama switched glasses with Heartman. The next waystation was about five miles north, which she walked at a leisurely pace alongside him.

#### •••

The cave they found themselves in was roomier than the last, their echoes louder. Soft moonlight fell from a singular hole in the roof, the only natural lightsource. Their cuff links suffused the cavern walls in blue. Mama projected a holographic campfire between them, which radiated no real warmth. Regardless, she held her hands out, pretending to warm herself in the artificial flames. She watched Heartman go about his nightly ritual of unpacking his hourglass, pill box, and sleeping bag from his backpack. Afterwards, he would bid her goodnight and try to sleep. But tonight he was wide awake, typing up a paper as he sat in his half open sleeping bag.

Mama couldn’t sleep either. She had stopped searching for exact reasons why. It could’ve been her hormones, DOOMS, Lockne, or some combination of the three. 

“The past informs the present,” Mama said, quoting an old conversation of theirs. “For someone who doesn’t get to spend much time in the present, you seem to care a lot about the past. Why is that?”

“In uncovering our past,” Heartman smiled at her briefly, then continued to type, “we reveal vital clues about the present. But, as you’ve observed, it is a present that I can only take part in twenty-one minutes at a time. Thankfully, it does not diminish my endless thirst for knowledge. My quest to find answers to humanity’s questions: what caused the Stranding? How has it changed our perception of death? Is there an afterlife? 

“Since death has become my constant companion, it was only logical to make it the focus of my research.”

He said all this matter-of-factly, in a tone she had come to understand was his default manner of speech. It did not matter what was being discussed, personal or otherwise; nearly every topic was given equal weight, equal importance. Mama didn’t return his smile right away. She made a sort of game out of figuring out when he would shift his tone. 

“Death has always been one of humanity’s great motivators,” Heartman began, closing his holoscreen. Even in half-light, his eyes held a familiar pensiveness. “Since ancient times, we have strived to conquer, defeat, or avoid death. To stave off its inevitability. We build monuments in the hope that we may live forever, in the memory of history. Take the great pyramids of Egypt for example,” he projected a holo of a pyramid above their campfire, a tinge of excitement in his voice. There it was. “Tombs. Built to honor the dead. 

Nowadays, I believe it is the fear of death which drives us. We fear it because, to us, it represents an end. We leave the present and become part of the past. If we’re lucky, permanently. I posit that this was not the case for ancient Egyptians. They believed that death was not the end. 

Heartman took out a canteen from his backpack, then poured some liquid into a cap. He toasted the air, smiling at her before taking a sip. “The past is not dead.”

Mama intimated with her eyebrows to ask if he had some to share. He immediately shook his head and drank the rest in one swig.

“None for you, sorry,” she scrunched her face in confusion. It was only water, right?  
“You’re expecting,” he said.  
It took her a moment. “ _Heartman._ ”  
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” he poured himself another. “Frankly, I’d rather die to this than to a BT.”

She didn’t disagree with him. He was a strange, strange man…  
Eventually, her look of disapproval got through to him, and he handed her a spare canteen of water. They sat drinking and laughing by the flickering campfire until the cave’s howl finally set in.  


“Can I ask you something?” Mama asked, once he got settled. “You die sixty times per day. Does it still scare you? Dying?”

“Terribly,” he replied without hesitation. “Though I suppose it’s not death itself that I fear most. It’s the afterlife. The thought of spending eternity alone. Leaving this side, my wife and child. My entire life’s work. What if all my research is simply...forgotten? What if _I_ am forgotten? 

Heartman laid in his sleeping bag flatly, looking up at the solitary hole in the ceiling. His glasses caught a streak of moonlight which disappeared as soon as he turned to her. 

“I for one would like to be remembered,” he murmured. “How shall I be remembered? That is a question for another day. Or night.”

His gaze wandered back to the ceiling. He fell silent. Mama thought he had fallen asleep or gone to the Beach. But at length, he turned to her again and said, “You know, I’m beginning to think you’re not afraid of anything.”  
He gestured to his stomach. “You’re, I’m sorry, five…?”  
“Seven.”  
“Seven weeks pregnant. Yet here you are,” he smiled at her with pride. “My wife loves to remind me that I was fortunate to not have been entirely present for the birth of our child. Not for the faith of heart, she says.”  
“I’ve watched way too many videos at this point,” Mama shivered in disgust. The thought that she would be in that same uncomfortable position hasn’t hit her yet. “Lockne won’t shut up about it. I’m scared of a lot of things. Childbirth included.”

Mama slipped deeper into her sleeping bag. She ran her fingers through her hair languidly, tracing the cavern’s striations with her eyes. 

“Maggots. Snakes. Oh—being buried alive. Losing my child. I had a nightmare about that once...scared the crap out of me,” her voice turned somber. “I am afraid of dying. Sometimes I wish I could see death the same way the Egyptians did. The part where they believed in an afterlife. You’ve probably heard about the Indestructibles. The undying stars—Kochab and Mizar. After the pharaohs were buried, they believed they would become one with the stars.”  
“Indeed,” Heartman hummed. “The pyramids were built in direct alignment with those stars. Towards the north sky.”  
“What if after all this, there’s nothing? No afterlife. Just—nothing,” she mused. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Being stuck somewhere with no way out.”  
“And if there is an afterlife?”  
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”  
“I suppose not,” Heartman conceded. Then curiosity sparked in his eyes. “If you don’t believe in an afterlife, what about this life? The one you and I are in now?”

“I try not to dwell...but there are things I would change.” It felt odd to tell him all this, considering his circumstances. Time and time again, he apologized for inconveniencing her with his heart, but not once had she heard him complain about it. Wish he had another’s, wish he were someone else. 

If he was there to judge her, he would’ve done so the moment she shared her doubt in an afterlife. She met his eyes across the holofire, the sparks falling then fading in the darkness around him like gentle snow. 

“Given the choice, I don’t think I would want DOOMS. The nightmares are too much. And there’s...” Mama trailed off. She didn’t want her sister to know what she felt, but in thinking so, had she inadvertently told her? Her mind spun at the thought.  
“Your DOOMS, it allows you to communicate with your sister from anywhere in the world,” he looked to her for confirmation. When she nodded, he continued. “Does that mean you can hear her every thought, verbatim?”  
“ _Almost_ everything,” Mama replied. She was relieved he had read between the lines. “We can keep things from each other, if we try hard enough. We can feel each other’s pain. Happiness. Loneliness. We’re always connected.”  
“That is why we are here on this expedition,” Heartman gazed at her, hopeful. “So that the rest of the world may feel connected too. Every waystation we reach is another step closer to unifying the country. Each day, a chance to uncover a piece of history. Better yet—to _make_ history. Each day a chance to understand our present and shape our future. It’s exciting beyond belief.  


“Who knows what awaits us?”

She leaned against her elbow, watched him set his hourglass. He was leaving for the Beach this time around.  
“Goodnight, Mama,” said Heartman. “Oh, and don’t nick my—"  
He was out like a light.  
“I won’t. Goodnight,” she laughed before plopping down on her bag. “Or morning. Whatever time it is on the Beach for you.”  


He gave her a thumbs up and twenty likes.

Mama closed her eyes, ready to let sleep overtake her. But a last minute thought came to mind. “Hey, I don’t know if you can still hear me but...earlier. When I ran away. I really scared you back there, didn’t I?” she asked. “Sorry, I got carried away. You know I won’t leave you, right? No matter what happens.”

She wasn’t sure if he heard any of it. But part of her hoped that he, at the very least, trusted her enough not to make off with his glasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[The Indestructibles on Wiki]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Indestructibles)  
> [[Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs on Wiki]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_afterlife_beliefs)  
> (3/29/20) some sketches I did of Heartman and Mama, which won't be posted until later <3
> 
> [[holodance]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/2e73d3f80ad04182e2069fda55c93a41/5b3794c67f4dfddb-48/s2048x3072/e2d14693f0e5dace056ab0007a2b5b982748c324.png) \- I'll write about this in a later chapter c:  
> [[Heartman hurts his hand]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/42f9bde9553506260da8b4e5a9ccb4c6/5b3794c67f4dfddb-ad/s2048x3072/7ce854724dab7f1763f086db6ebc7d0b716f1ce4.png) \- likely won't be in this story, but it popped into my head and I had to draw it, lol. Where Heartman hurts his right hand and forgets that he can still give likes.  
> take care everyone!


	7. Lockne

Outside the walls of Mountain Knot City, lush greenery merged with blankets of snow. A summer-winter that persisted year-round, the landscape equal parts snowfield and grasslands, with dirt paths dotted by moss-hewn rock. It had been months since she saw the area around the city with her own eyes. Shelters filled all tiers of the snow-layered mountain, rusted gray steel against white. A partition of rocks separated snow from grass, mountainside from hillside. 

Lockne didn’t stray far from Aaron. He didn’t use his cuff link as they walked along a dirt path, which led to a glade some few blocks east of the city.

“Just a little farther,” he said. The crackle of underbrush made her nervous. "No BTs here, don’t worry. I checked.”

Lockne slowed to a stop behind him. When he noticed only his own footsteps were making noise, he turned around. 

“You’re taking me to a secluded place, you won’t tell me where...” she began, raising a sarcastic brow. “You’re trying to get rid of me so you can be overseer.”  
“I see how it is, boss,” he smirked. “How do I know _you_ don’t wanna be Head of Distro?”  
“I don’t want to be stuck at a terminal,” Lockne laughed. The last time she had been on one was when she met Daniel. She caught her mind wandering and reeled it back. “Your chair is very comfy.”  
“Ha. One of these days I’m gonna switch out our holoplaques.”

They went deeper into the forest. Dappled sunlight painted their faces in odd but beautiful shadows. Beneath them, specks of morning crawled over the underbrush like gold scarabs. Here, there was no loud whirring, no constant drone from a conveyor belt. Only the wind whistling through the trees, the rustling of leaves. Lockne breathed in the scent of peat and petrichor. The timefall brought not only decay, but life too. 

Aaron stood beside her. In her peripherals, she could see him staring.  
“Close your eyes,” he murmured.  


Lockne turned to him, searching his eyes. Swirling in hues of stolen sunlight was a playfulness she wished she still had. Every expeditioner held some form of it in their eyes, a fire that burned in different degrees. Aaron’s was bright, newly lit, warm; hers was cold, close to dying. If she stared into his eyes long enough, maybe he could rekindle that spark in her...

Aaron said nothing for a long while, until, “Do you trust me?”  
Lockne kept him in suspense for a bit, not saying a word. Finally, she closed her eyes.

She heard the crunching of leaves, footsteps drawing away. Her body suddenly tensed at the thought of him leaving her. But she trusted him. The underbrush stopped crackling, and she felt his presence nearby. 

“You can open your eyes now,” he whispered.

When she did, Aaron was on his knees, holding a stalk of sandalweed out to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Fine Line - Harry Styles](https://open.spotify.com/track/6VzcQuzTNTMFnJ6rBSaLH9)


	8. Mama

Mama walked to the confines of her lab, stopping at the blue holowall that separated the front from the main wing. On the other side was her personal terminal, beyond that the countryside. All verdant greens and swaying tallgrass, dirt paths that had weathered countless timefall. Occasionally, she sent out bots to survey the area immediately around her lab. Outside was the decrepit wasteland of the former hospital, where metal I-beams shot out of the rubble like the golden fingers of chiral crystals. Past that were snow capped mountains; wintry pines that gave way to endless seas of white. 

A pristine heart-shaped lake.

She held her hand up to the wall, letting her fingers phase through it. There was no reason to place her hand on his chest. No reason to stare at his scar, a pale red line that likely ran farther down his body. It was thin and eerily straight, as if made by a robotic hand rather than a human one. She looked at her fingers and wondered if his scar was smooth or rough, if it hurt to the touch; what laid beneath all his muscle and bone. 

At length, Mama felt her cord tugging at her. Ellie came down on her own, cooing excitedly. She grasped for the wall. 

“If I could...I would take you somewhere far away from here. Where you can see the sun, the moon. All the stars. Would you like that?” she murmured.

The lab suddenly went dark. Another chiral spike. Above her, the lights held a faint glow, like the dying embers of stars. Instinctively, she rocked Ellie back and forth. But the baby wasn’t crying; only Mama was. Tears streamed down her face, and the child reached for her, trying to wipe them away. 

Mama kissed the child’s head and let her float away. The lights didn’t come back on immediately. Her eyes acclimated to the darkness, and on the textured ceiling was a receding trail of small black handprints. _Not even the rain..._

As Mama waited for Ellie to fall asleep, restless thoughts floated in her mind like holos. Conversations played out one after another after another.

 _Admit you hate me. You’re not a bad person. We won’t drift apart. I think there’s an afterlife._  
_If I stay, it would make leaving all the more difficult._

Mama stared at her loose cuff link. She had known him for years. By now, she felt she knew him well—well enough to see the cracks in his stoic facade, to know when he was hiding something behind his smile. 

Her eyelids felt heavy, and sleep was about to set in. She was getting ready to lay her head down on her desk, when another chiral spike hit the lab. Emanating from the entrance was the telltale noise of a spinning odradek. 

It was Sam.

He looked like he’d been through hell and back, face streaked in tar and damaged packages piled high. If her hands weren’t full, she would’ve cleaned him up a bit. Strangely enough, he wasn’t phased by his disheveled state; he did, after all, just walk out of a supercell. 

“What the—?” Sam stared at her and Ellie, disbelief in his small eyes, as if a storm that vanished in a matter of seconds wasn’t the weirdest thing he had come across. 

“...She’s my daughter. And I’m her mama,” she explained, watching Sam as she soothed her baby. He looked between them with eyes as curious as his BB’s. They must’ve been a walking thought experiment to him: Schrodinger’s BT, both alive and dead. 

Mama knew she couldn’t get out of telling Sam the truth. It was the least she could do, considering everything he was doing for the network.

“It’s okay. She’s only connected to me,” Mama continued. “She’s not like the other BTs.” 

Mama waved him over to her desk. She tried not to stare at Little Sam, who happily tumbled and babbled in his tiny world: an orange, test tube like compartment that was always glued to Sam. The same way Heartman couldn’t live without his defibrillator, Sam likely wouldn’t be here without his BB. She stared at the little one for a few moments, then at Ellie, who had floated back to the ceiling.

Mama shook her head, smiling. She wanted his baby to stay, but his babbling was beginning to distract her. 

“Can the grown-ups talk for a minute?” she asked, in the same cutesy voice she used with Ellie. She saw Sam’s reluctance at the request, but he eventually complied. He pulled the cord connecting him to his BB, and the pod turned black. The sudden stillness echoed in her ears. Mama continued with her explanation, pulling up the data from the supercell and projecting it onto the screen in front of her desk.

“...Best guess I can muster is you were ‘trapped’ between two different spacetimes.” _Like me._ As Sam analyzed the data, Mama looked at him for what felt like the first time. No static between them; just particles of dust that floated about in the hololight. Maybe it was maternal instinct, or her unfulfilled desire for any human touch and connection—but she freed her hands, grabbed a clean cloth from her desk drawer.

She took a tentative step towards him, cloth in hand. Sam drew back. His shoulders rigid, braced for a fight. Once he registered what she was trying to do, he relaxed. Let her come closer. Mama didn’t break his gaze as she wiped the tar from his face. He was older than she remembered, as if the storm had moved him forward in time while she remained. Guilt washed over her as she dragged the rag across his tired eyes. She was to blame for all this. He was being forced to continue an expedition that wasn’t his own, forced to reconnect a network he no longer had any faith in. 

Mama looked into his eyes and expected to find annoyance, resentment. But she found only sadness—the same sadness she saw in Heartman’s eyes. She finally drew away from him. Ellie’s cries caught her attention. She brought her in close, swaddled her in the same cloth she had used for Sam. 

“I mean, you know she’s gone,” he said, more to Ellie than to her. “You wanna live your life in the shadow of the dead?”

“C’mon, Sam. You of all people?” she shot, trying to regain her distance. His words, though soft-spoken, held the sharpness of an accusation. She wasn’t alone in the valley of the shadow of death. There was Deadman, Heartman, Lockne. Him. They had all chosen to live among the dead, one way or another. 

“You chose the dead over the living. Why else would you be here?” Mama spoke for both of them. She knew he wouldn’t say anything back and took no pride in ‘winning’ their argument. After a beat, she held her loose cuff out to him. “I just remembered. Deadman told me repatriates have special blood,” she said. “Mind if I take a sample?”

Sam held his arm out begrudgingly. “You already bleed me in my sleep,” he muttered. A rare complaint. She tried not to touch his skin as she cuffed his forearm, but the pads of her fingers brushed against him. He flinched. 

“Bit cold, ain'tcha?”  
“Just a second,”—Mama uncuffed him,—”there, all done.”  
She looked to her desk, where she’d stashed his new cuff link away.  
“I want to run a test.”  
“Mama, are you,” Sam trailed off.  


He must’ve known. Or at least, suspected. 

_Are you dead?_

What would she have said to him? Her existence had upended everything she knew about being alive. She had no heartbeat, felt no physical pain. If life were measured by both, then she’d been dead for years. But what did that make of her brain, the seat of her emotions, which felt stronger now than ever before?

Mama wanted to tell him everything—not just about Ellie and the attack on the hospital. She wanted to tell him of Lockne, of how scared she was of losing their child; of what she wanted to do with his blood. She wanted him to stay with her. In her beatless heart, she knew Sam was the only one who could help her do what she needed to do—what she should’ve done years ago.

She met his gaze. There was unspoken knowing in his eyes, which told her everything. He knew.  
“I’m sorry, Sam.” Mama breathed. “Would you mind leaving us alone for a while?”  
He nodded. She was content with ending on that, but was seized with a sudden pang of worry.  
“Sam—hey. Maybe we’re making things worse, maybe not. But it’s the only plan I—we’ve got.  
“Good luck.”  


Mama smiled at him as she rocked her baby. He nodded in thanks and headed off to Mountain Knot City, his still-spinning odradek lighting his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...the sun, the moon. All the stars," is a reference to e.e. cummings' ["silently if,out of not knowable"](https://books.google.com/books?id=Fb7wAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA70&dq=%22silently+if,+out+of+not+knowable%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjy9N7v6tzoAhU_JjQIHanSDpUQ6AEwAXoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=%22silently%20if%2C%20out%20of%20not%20knowable%22&f=false%22)
> 
> [[Schrödinger's cat on Wiki]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat)


	9. Lockne

“Aaron...”  
“It’s sandalweed,” he replied, matter-of-factly. He grew wide-eyed and abruptly withdrew it from her. “Are you allergic?”  
“No. No, I’m not,” her cheeks grew hot. She snatched the stalk from his hand and walked past him. “I just haven’t seen one. In a while.”

Lockne picked a direction and kept walking. A few feet ahead, in the luminous daylight of a clearing, a deer grazed on a patch of grass. The creature’s ears were large, and it had no antlers. A doe. Lockne lied low, trying not to startle her; but the crackle of underbrush drew her attention. She stopped grazing and looked in her general direction, glassy eyes gleaming bright. Aaron walked ahead of Lockne. She grabbed his arm in alarm, and he squeezed her hand gently, calming her.

The doe stared at him, still save for the quivering of her ears. “Hey fella,” Aaron held his own sandalweed out to her. “Remember me?”  
She sniffed the plant first, then Aaron, before taking a careful bite. He patted the doe’s head.  
“I missed you, fella.” Between chewing, she would suddenly stop, alert, ears pointed and twitching.  
“She looks so scared...”  
“She?”  
“She doesn’t have antlers.”  
Aaron stared at her in confused disbelief. “Female deer don’t have antlers?”  
She squinted at him. He cleared his throat and gestured at the doe enthusiastically.  
“So...this is Bartholomew. Sandalweed is her favorite. Ain’t that right?”

‘Bartholomew’ bleated in what sounded like a happy tone. Lockne held her fingers out, then gently scratched under the doe’s chin. The doe closed her eyes and tilted her neck back, exposing the underside of her fur, which bore white patches from timefall. She stroked her gently, tracing the outline of the patches with her finger. 

“This is from timefall,” Lockne fed her sandalweed. “Why not take her in?”  
Sighing, he said, “I know. I’ve thought about it.” He sat on the grass with a conflicted expression, inspecting the doe’s mismatched fur and spotted legs. “Poor fella’s been through a lot. But I don’t want to keep her captivity, you know? She should be free to eat all the sandalweed she wants. Right, Bartholomew?”

Another happy bleat. Lockne laughed at this unlikely bond they had formed. She looked to Bartholomew, watched her roam the forest clearing, sniffing here and chewing there. If the doe had evaded timefall and BTs for this long, then she likely knew the forest well. Aaron was right; the cold confines of the city was no place for a beautiful creature like her.

Lockne sat on the grass next to Aaron, admiring the doe from afar. They talked well into the afternoon, about everything and nothing; from the animals they’ve come across in their expeditions, to their dreams and hopes and desires. 

#### •••

“...You did _not!_ ” 

Lockne laughed and laughed until her belly ached. She laid on the grass with him. They looked up at the sky, watching daylight fade into hues of dusky reds and purples, not a single rainbow in sight. Bartholomew slept near their feet, curled up in a ball. 

“I have pictures to prove it,” Aaron leaned against his elbow. He set his hat down on the grass. His windswept hat hair and darkening beard gave him a rugged, unkempt look, giving Lockne the impression that he was on the hairier side. She stared at his chest, at the zipper pull that dangled before her narrowed eyes, hypnotic and mesmerizing.  
“...probably don’t wanna to see ‘em. Might burn your eyes,” he had gone on, though for how long, she didn't know.  
“Show me,” said Lockne. There was heat behind her words. Afraid that she had overstepped her bounds, she backtracked. “On second thought, I don’t want to sleep with that image in my head. But do you...sleep without…?”  
“Pssh, no. I sleep with clothes on. I swear,” Aaron grew flustered. He muttered a quick, “You?” which he immediately followed up with, “I mean—not that I would want you to sleep naked. Not that I’ve thought about—u-unless you do, which is perfectly fine, boss. You do you. I won’t—  
“I’ll stop talking,” he fell flat on his back, defeated. He was breathing hard, and she watched him, her mind wandering.

“I don’t,” she replied, just to see the look on his face. He cleared his throat, and she smiled at him coyly. “I don’t really sleep. When I do, it’s not for very long.”  
“...Really?”  
“Ever since I—we were little. Målingen and I...we couldn’t sleep if the other was awake. So when she was having a nightmare, I would be having a nightmare. If she was sleepy, I was sleepy. Now...I don’t know.”  
“Still can’t believe it,” he murmured. “That there’s someone out there who's just as beautiful as you are.”

He slid his left arm under her head, and with his right, brought her face closer to his. She could hardly breathe as he tucked a hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing against the cold metal of her earring. They were suddenly on the same wavelength, wanting the same thing at the same moment at the same time. She wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss her. Aaron’s gaze flitted to her lips, where they remained for several breathless moments.

“Can I…?”  
“You don’t have to ask—”

Lockne inhaled sharply before he pressed his lips against hers. She felt his mouth curl into a smile, and she breathed him in—the musk and morning on his skin melding with the salty taste of their kiss. Deft fingers tangled in her hair as she fell back on the grass, lips locked, bodies pressed, hands intertwined. He hovered over her, smiling as he caught his breath. She held his face in her hands, unable to speak, only sigh at the rasp of his stubble against her face. All she could think about was how good he looked, out of breath, smiling, sweat glistening his forehead in the moonlight.

She was about to pull him in for another kiss, when a high-pitched bleat startled them both. Aaron shielded her with his body before craning to look behind him. Whatever he saw made him slink away from her, hands thrown up in apology as he left to chase after something. 

“Hey—hey, that’s my hat!” 

Lockne sat up on the grass, squinting to get a better look. Bartholomew was chewing on a Bridges hat, stotting away each time Aaron tried to reach for it. She couldn’t help but laugh at the scene—every swipe so agonizing close yet so far. After several minutes, Aaron returned to her, panting. She smirked at him from her spot on the grass. 

“Could you...give me a hand, boss?”

She sat there, intent on smirking at him for the rest of the night. Eventually, they broke into laughter. At each other, at Bartholomew, at how their night had panned out.

Lockne gave him her hand and he helped her off the ground. She didn’t let go—not for a long while.


	10. Heartman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle reminder about the tags for this work, as this chapter and the subsequent one describes: suicide; suicide ideation; depression; alcohol use.

Heartman awoke on an ash gray Beach. As soon as he came to, the putrid smell of death and decay flooded his nostrils, and he covered his nose at once. It felt like eons since a smell had overtaken him, since he had grown accustomed to the various odors that permeated his lab’s morgue: from the acrid scent of formaldehyde to the sweetness of phenol.

He scanned the sands and found whale carcasses strewn everywhere for miles on end, covered in seagulls that came and went with the tide. He approached the carcass closest to him. He attempted to scan it with his cuff link, but still nothing.

The bones had been picked clean. By its long beak and unusual teeth, strap-like and projecting upward and backward on either side of its skull, he identified it as the remains of a _Mesoplodon layardii,_ the strap-toothed whale. He had identified hundreds of different species over the decade he had spent here. Each time he looked out at the shores, he felt a sense of helplessness at seeing the rest of the carcasses. These whales might not be here physically; mere manifestations of something beyond even his own understanding. He could only surmise what they meant to the owner of this Beach, if they meant anything at all. 

Heartman searched for signs of his family, of someone, anyone. Any form of life. He walked for what felt like an hour until he finally saw someone. A lanky man stood in the shallows. His pants were rolled up to his knees, and he shivered in the cold breeze. Heartman’s hands felt barren at the sight of a gold band on the other’s ring finger. 

“I couldn’t save her,” said the man, as soon as Heartman was within earshot. Like so many others, his gaze was distant and desolate. The light they once held, spent, never to burn again. 

“My wife.” The man murmured, two words that carried all the grief in the world. Despite this, he managed a smile. “She loved the beach. It’s where we spent our first honeymoon.” 

Heartman looked out at the horizon. Seagulls flew across the twilight in sparse lines, condensing into one fluttering mass before parting again, an endless dance that never ceased to mesmerize him. 

“I used to spend my summers on the beach. With my family,” Heartman began, watching the birds overhead. “Sarah—my daughter—liked feeding the gulls. A bit too much, I’m afraid. She packed a bag of crisps, for a road trip we had, and she refused to open it. Wouldn’t let me have any, not a single one. Until we arrived at the beach.”

The man finally stared at him. The smile from earlier remained, snaggletoothed and small. He wasn't used to smiling and didn’t wear it for long.

“You don’t have to do that,” said the man, quietly. He faced Heartman and smiled in earnest. “But thank you.”

“...Do what, exactly?” Had he meant the anecdote? Or for finding him?

“You’re trying to make me feel better. I can tell. I’ve met a lot of people like you,” he said, adjusting his ring. “It’s usually the happiest people that know the deepest pain. They pretend to be happy, because maybe at some point it’ll start to feel real again. I know because...I was like that,” the man looked to the sea, then nodded in silent agreement. In a voice that broke his heart, he said, “It only felt real when I was with her.”

Heartman knew his pain all too well, knew that words were inadequate to describe it. All he could do was listen. 

“If I’m right about you, it means you know,” the man continued, sniffing between words. “You know that...if we die here, we move on.” 

Heartman nodded. Unlike the other, his tears flowed freely as he pieced together the man’s intention. The decomposing beached whales, the pervasive presence of death, the ash-like sand of the shores. He knew what kind of Beach this was.

It was a resting place. 

Wherever he went, death followed. In the Beach. In the world of the living. He had watched the life leave President Strand’s body, saw her eyes close one last time. He had seen countless people march to the sea. Death was his constant companion, but that did not make her presence any less terrifying. 

“You won’t try to stop me?” the man asked, at last, his face streaked with tears.  
“No. I won’t,” Heartman assured him. He didn’t step away. Neither of them moved.  
“Will you—can you walk with me? It doesn’t have to be far,” the man sounded strangely calm, unafraid of what was to come.  
His face darkened, then he muttered, “I don’t want to die alone.”  


Heartman held his hand out to him. He smiled at him gratefully, then took it. They walked past the shallows together. Once they drew closer to the depths, the man squeezed his hand one last time before letting go.

He smiled back at Heartman before marching into the sea.

#### •••

> _Beach #217,230_
> 
> 382.
> 
> I’m sorry. I never got your name. 

  


Heartman poured himself a glass of scotch and drank it in one sitting. Then he grabbed his decanter and poured himself another. He sat at his desk and stared at the hourglass, letting the alcohol burn through his last ten minutes. 

Sam would arrive at Mama’s lab any day now. He flicked his cuff link, pulled up the porter’s files from Bridges’ archives. He too had lost his wife and child in a voidout, but survived because of his repatriation. It saddened and fascinated him at once, to know that there were many like him, suffering. Alone and apart. 

As far as Heartman knew, Mama was not a repatriate. She could die. Or like him, suffer a fate worse than death. He took another swig and set his half-empty glass down. Absentmindedly, he traced the scar on his chest, raised and smooth, its pain beyond superficial, reaching into the depths of his heart. In his mind's eye, Mama reached for his chest, her loose cuff swaying as she felt his irregular heartbeat. If she could touch him, then, she would’ve felt his heart skip a beat, then another and another...

He searched his desk for the photograph from earlier. It was from their expedition, three years ago. He never expected to reconnect with her. A part of him wished they never had, now. There was no point in growing closer to someone on the side of the living; no point in forming connections that would inevitably be broken.

“...Drinking again?”  
Heartman dropped the photograph and braced himself against his desk. He clutched his chest out of habit, breathing hard. Then he started to laugh.  
Concerned, Mama stammered, “I’m so sorry, I—”  
“No, no. Don’t be,” he saw her staring at the photograph, which he promptly picked up and placed in his coat pocket. 

“That’s why I have this,” he knocked on his defibrillator. It was still the old model; he hadn’t printed her new one out. It was best not to let on why. Besides, how would he hope to explain her? That he didn’t want to be better, than he had all but given up until she came back to his life?

She hovered her hands over his arms, trying to steady him through the call. He found it so hopelessly affectionate that he simply stood there, back braced against the desk, basking in the spell of her gaze for a little while longer.

“Don’t worry about me. You have enough to worry about as is,” Heartman said, once he had broken out of her spell. He tried to change the subject, acutely aware that she was glaring at him as he closed his decanter. “How is Lockne? And your child?”

“Fine. They’re fine.”

The daggers in her stare dulled for a moment before sharpening again. He wasn’t used to her coldness. It unnerved him. 

“You’re not taking care of yourself,” she remarked.  
He stared at the now-empty glass in his hands, swished nothing and muttered, “Better this than to a BT.”  
“Heartman...” The disappointment was palpable in her voice, her eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Disappointing her was particularly disheartening to him, and he wasn’t quite sure why.  
“You called?”  
“Sam is headed to Mountain Knot City. He’s going to bring it into the network soon. I hope.”

His initial surprise at seeing her dissipated. It was strictly a business call, nothing more. He nodded, then said, “I’m pleased to hear that. That’s wonderful news.” A silence fell. She would glance at something above them, but her gaze, without fail, always returned to him. 

Heartman looked to his decanter again and had half a mind to offer her a drink, a thought that he dropped as soon as Mama’s holo flickered. A constant reminder of the oceans between them, real and imagined. Whenever he saw her, she stood in the halflight, her shadows far deeper than his. He stared at her in absent contemplation, for the first time in a long time, at a loss for words. His heart was beating quickly, and he knew it wasn’t the scotch.

Perhaps the alcohol emboldened him, or his trips to the Beach had finally driven him mad. So he was Charon, all along...

Heartman walked over his gramophone and put a record on for her. A Bach performed by a Pre-Stranding pianist. As the record spun, a beautiful smile swept across her face. She already identified which composition it was. 

He held out his hand, palm open, smirk on his flushed face. It didn’t take long for Mama to figure out the question in his eyes, and she let out a soft laugh at how silly he must’ve looked: a hologram asking for a dance. He kept his hand extended. She didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea; in fact, she smiled even wider.

“I know I can’t feel you,” Heartman murmured. “But I’d like to try.”

There were thousands of miles between them, but at that instant, they were atoms apart. She took his hand and drew closer, close enough for him to count the lines of her holo. He couldn’t remember the last time someone looked at him this way, with something like fondness in their eyes. Or was she still heady from the laughter, his silliness, the strangeness of it all?

Mama brought her hand to his chest first. His gaze lingered on her eyes, the intensity of her focus drawing him in, making his heart hammer against his ribcage. She moved slowly and deliberately, as if he truly stood before her, in the flesh. She smiled up at him. The spell returned, and he too found himself smiling as they swayed together, miraculously and beautifully in sync, no delays in their connection. Her fingers phased through his, which once instilled great sadness in him; but now, it was replaced with a sense of hope and longing. Perhaps he would see her again, someday. Feel her hand against his.

He took a step closer. They laughed together. Her laughter was the tail end of an exhale, breathless and sensuous. His persisted longer, tapering away and leaving behind a smile that he couldn’t seem to drop. 

More than anything, he craved normalcy. He didn’t know what that was exactly, having lived with his condition for almost a decade now.

He figured this was close to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [John My Beloved - Sufjan Stevens](https://open.spotify.com/album/0U8DeqqKDgIhIiWOdqiQXE?highlight=spotify:track:2OBgZrayUVupeEtt1eu2V4)  
> Trigger warning applies to this song as it mentions death in the chorus.  
> One of my favorite Sufjan songs, up there with _Visions of Gideon._
> 
> [Bach: Prelude 1 in C Major BWV 846 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, performed by Tzvi Erez](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXMVkQ70I88)
> 
> [[Strap-toothed whale on Wiki]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strap-toothed_whale)


	11. Mama

“This is a piece from the _Well-Tempered Clavier_ ,” Heartman said. 

They swayed to the wistful notes of the prelude. She waited for him to say more but, uncharacteristically, he left it at that. He looked content but tired, cheeks flushed from alcohol, eyes slightly reddened from crying.

“Is there anything you don’t know?” Mama asked. He gave a flattered laugh when he realized she was being serious.  
“Many things. Oftentimes it’s...the things that are of importance which I know little about.”  
She raised a skeptical brow.  
“Well, for one I don’t know how to dance. I’m quite glad we’re through holocall, because I’d have likely stepped on your toes by now.”

Mama laughed and looked down. The tip of his sneaker was phasing through her shoe and he repositioned himself. When their eyes met, he said, “I don't know your real name.”  
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she whispered.  
“James.”  
“Målingen.”  
“... _Målingen_ ,” he repeated, tentatively. She liked the way it sounded in his voice. 

She caught his mannerism: the ghosting smile which would appear for the briefest of moments before fading. It was clear that something troubled him; in the past, she would take it as a cue to leave. But now, she felt compelled to stay.

“It’s okay,” Mama encouraged.

He tilted his head, raised his brows. “If I mispronounce your name?”  
“I’ve known you for so long that I can tell when you’re sad. Even when you’re smiling,” she murmured. “It’s okay, James. You don’t have to hide around me anymore.  


"What’s bothering you?”

Heartman stared at her with a pained look in his eyes before dropping his head. He continued to sway with her, slower now than ever before. For a while, he said nothing, staring at their feet in silence. 

“Three hundred and eighty-two,” he said.  
It couldn’t have been the times he had gone to the Beach; that would’ve been a much higher number.

“I’ve witnessed three hundred and eighty-two people commit suicide on the Beach,” he said. “The one I’ve just been to. I—I didn’t even know his name.” 

At this, he looked up. There were tears in his eyes, and she watched them trickle down to his jaw, unable to wipe them away, cup his face in her hands, hold him. 

“I keep pondering what my life would be like, if I was...normal. If I didn’t have to go to other Beaches. If I didn’t have this damned heart. I’m still part of the registry—I’ve been waiting for a heart transplant for nearly eight years, now. I don’t expect to find anyone. Which is understandable: almost all the deceased are brought to the incinerator before necrosis sets in.”

Mama brought her arms to rest around his neck and looked over his shoulder. She stared at her loose cuff link, and like a grandfather clock’s pendulum, it swung endlessly. In quiet moments, time made itself felt. One can only hear the ticking of a clock’s second hand, the beating of a heart, or the flow of an hourglass in the silence.

In the infinitesimal pauses between his words, she heard it. Their time running out.

“It is onerous. To maintain the pretense that I am...Heartman. That my damned heart and the Beach defines me. The truth is, I wish to live a different life. This isn’t living, that much I know. I’ve thought of...I’ve thought of joining them. Of staying on the Beach. Permanently.”

She reached for his face and tried not to let her fingertips phase through him. He looked at her as if he had confessed to a crime, some unforgivable grievance that would forever change the way she looked at him. She recognized the apology in his eyes, the guilt and shame that dug out her own buried feelings. 

“I know you’re hurting. I’ve felt it before, through Lockne. It felt like someone ripped my heart out, and when they put it back in...it never beat the same again. We—she didn’t want to go on. Because that’s who Lockne is: she loves people so deeply that she loses a part of herself in them. And I may not know what it’s like to love someone that much but…”

Mama trailed off. Her hands lingered on his face, and he raised his against hers. Maybe she was wrong, that she did know what it was like—to love someone as deeply and inexorably. Clarity washed over her mind as she stared into the solemn blues of his eyes. 

Mama lowered a hand to his chest. She knew what she had to do. She knew how to help him.

“Promise me that you won’t be like the people you see on the Beach. That you’ll choose the living over the dead. If not for me, then for yourself. For Bridges.” 

He suddenly stopped swaying, as if she had reminded him of something. He held up a finger and flicked his cuff link, activating the window shutters and plunging the room in darkness. His defibrillator began to countdown, and she watched him, panicked, as he was about to leave her so soon.

But he remained. Breathing. Alive.

“Målingen, I’m sorry. There’s something you should know,” Heartman drew away from her, looking to his divan weakly.

“You and I were present when President Strand passed. We saw her on her deathbed, surrounded by Deadman and his medical team. Sam, the Director. With the exception of her daughter, Amelie, she died surrounded by her loved ones. I used to hope that I would leave this world the same way. 

“I saw it for myself. I saw it in her eyes: she died in pain. Suffering until her last breath. I know this because I’ve been in her position before.”

“Every time you go to the Beach. It hurts you,” Mama murmured.

“Yes. And each time I return, it hurts all the same,” he said. “President Strand was suffering from a terminal illness. Terminal cancer, to be exact. Death has been at her side for a very long time. I fear that is something I know all too well.”

Mama eyed the monitors, then his defibrillator, which was the same one he always had. The old model that has seen better days...

Despite knowing where he was headed, she said, “I don’t understand.”

Heartman gave a halfhearted smile before turning his back on her. He walked up to his hourglass, and she expected him to set it as he usually did. Instead, he placed it on its side.

“I’m dying, Målingen. I’m dying and the only thing I _can_ do is...choose the manner of my death. I should like to die on the Beach. Ideally, with my family. But I’m beginning to think that may no longer be a possibility. This is why I disappeared. Why I left headquarters, distanced myself from everyone. Pushed you away. Why I’ve spent the past three years publishing all my findings and research.

“I’ve chosen the dead a long time ago. But death is not always the end. It’s not even an end. I think Bridges will carry on my legacy. _Our_ legacy, even if I won’t be there to see it.”

Her mind raced to contradict him. He will be there to see the finished network. He will live to see the connected world they both dreamed of, and she was prepared to do everything in her power to make sure of it.

“James,” she murmured. He met her eyes. “You _will_ be there to see it. We’ll both be.”  
“Målingen...it’s alright.”  
“No. No, it isn’t,” her voice rose, frustrated at the unsettling calm he exuded.  
“You’re just like Lockne. She tried to—after Daniel died, she...I can’t lose another person that I love.” 

Heartman’s eyes flickered at the words. His expression, once anguished and pained, turned pensive. She let the words sit in the silence, let him unravel them. She meant every word, every syllable. 

“That’s always been who you are...what I’ve always admired about you,” he finally said. "You’ll do anything to help the people around you. Sometimes to the detriment of yourself. You have a good heart.” This time, he was the one who held his hand out to her, placing it over her chest. “I wish everyone had a heart like yours.”

 _A heart like yours._ The words rang in her ears. She placed her hand over his. With conviction, she closed her fingers and formed a fist over her heart, as if she would pull it out then and there and give it to him. To say, _this is yours. Do what you will with it._

“ _One minute remaining,_ ” he gave her an apologetic smile and sat on his divan. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I made a promise that I wouldn’t leave you no matter what.” 

She stood by him, as she had so many times before and whispered, “I’m not going anywhere.”

He placed a hand over his chest but said nothing. All he did was smile at her, and it wasn’t the kind, soft smile that she had grown to love. It was a smile that held all the pain and sadness in the world, thin and trembling. 

When he died, a part of her died with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bach: Prelude 1 in C Major BWV 846 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, performed by Tzvi Erez](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXMVkQ70I88)


	12. Heartman

Heartman found himself alone on the Beach. His cuffed hand remained on his chest, the metal heavy against his heart as he laid on the sand, staring up at a starless night sky. He had no intention of standing up. No intention of leaving the very spot he found himself in. The shallow waters lapped against his feet and radiated to his back.

He laid there and thought of every conversation he had ever exchanged on the Beach, the words echoing in the empty chambers of his heart and mind. He thought of President Strand on her deathbed. Of the man whose hand he had held, of Sam, Fragile, Deadman, the Director, Daniel, his doctor. His wife and child. He thought of everyone he had ever met and had yet to meet. He thought of Målingen. Of her small hand pressed against his chest, his against hers. If he were to glimpse her heart, he was certain that it would not be the vibrant red of cardiac tissue, but the sunlit gold of chiralium—pure and stainless and immaculate. A heart of gold. 

_Promise me that you won’t be like the people you see on the Beach._

His feet acted before his mind did. Before long, he was standing, marching past the shallows and into the depths of the sea. In the darkness, he heard the waves crashing against rocks, the tide like blood flowing through his arteries. He marched until he reached what felt like the edge of the shallows, where the ocean met the shore. Where this side ended and the other began. 

Heartman stared at his cuff link. He planned to leave on the Beach it worked on. That was the sign he had chosen to stake his gravesite. 217,231 trips to the Beach and his cuff link had not worked on a single one. Perhaps he was deluding himself, that he was afraid to die and was merely searching for reasons to prolong his so-called life—another Beach, another day, another year. His cuff link would never work here. For all his talk of already being dead, the fear of spending eternity alone still plagued him. The uncertainty that he would be swallowed by the waves only to wake at another damned Beach. 

Or what if Mama was right—what if there was nothing? 

_Choose the living over the dead._

To him, it was not a binary choice. Of A or B, of life or death. It was choosing some semblance of a life over a more certain death. Unknowns existed in both spheres, and in the umbras of his soul he knew that there was a certainty in death which life could only hope to attain. Life and each of its days are numbered, never given. Every day he spent on this side he had to fight for and earn. Yet death would inevitably befall everyone who did not have the luxury of repatriation, everyone who wasn’t like Sam. This was his life. Ultimately, he was not so different from everyone else. 

This was how they all lived.

Heartman lifted his arm. Flicked his wrist. His cuff link glowed intensely, and before him stood two figures, like ghosts hovering over the darkened shores.

“Miriam.” She stared behind him. Beside her, “Sarah—”

His daughter ran towards him and phased through his chest. He turned around and saw himself on a hospital bed, his daughter on her tiptoes, straining to look past the handrails.  
“ _Are you dying again, daddy?_ ”  
“ _It’s going to be alright,_ ” his holo reached out and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “ _Daddy will be back. He always comes back._ ”  
“ _Can I go with you? Please?_ ”  
“ _When the surgeon arrives, they’re going to take me to the operating room to fix my heart. I have to go alone, I’m afraid._ "  


Heartman walked up to his other self, watching him as if he were some stranger speaking to his family. He recognized the conversation—the last conversation he ever had with them. He had committed every word to memory. But at present, the scene had the detachment of an out of body experience.

“ _Is it still broken?_ ” Sarah asked. Heartman smiled the same time his holo did.  
“ _Sort of. It’s...not working as it should._ ”  
“ _But,_ ” she grabbed his hand. “ _I don’t want you to change. Mommy loves you the way you are. I do too._ ”  
His holo gave a soft laugh, then raised his glasses to wipe away a tear. Miriam reached for his face and brushed the back of her fingers against his cheeks. She wasn’t as fond of her calloused hands as he was.  
“ _Think about it this way. Once I’m better, I can keep up with you when we play tag,_ ” he took both of their hands in his. “ _I can play with you for longer than twenty one minutes. We can watch longer movies together, read more books. How does that sound?_ ”  


Sarah nodded enthusiastically. The three of them hugged for a long while, extending past the time the surgeon allotted. When they finally parted, his glasses were crooked and his scleras had turned a bright red. Miriam laughed, righted his glasses and planted a kiss on his forehead before taking Sarah into her arms. She took small, timid steps away from him. Slowly, he recognized himself. He began to see that the man before him was no stranger, but a part of himself that would always remain with him. They were one and the same.

This was not a parting. It was a reunion—of _ka_ and _ha_ becoming one.

“ _...Will you bring my book for me?_ ” he finally asked. “ _The hourglass too. Please._ ”  
“ _I’ll bring them. We’ll be back soon, okay?_ ”  
“ _Promise you’ll come back, daddy?_ ” Sarah asked.  
“ _Promise._ ”  
“ _Cross your heart?_ ”

Heartman placed a hand on his chest.

" _Cross my heart._ ”  
“ _I love you,_ ” said Miriam. Then another voice, soon after.  
“ _I love you. With my whole heart,_ ” he murmured, smiling as he watched his family fade away.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's an early preview of the cover for the final part of this series! [[cover]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/84ed42d55e3bbd29ea0c9b28f263bfe1/44867dbb853645e6-ed/s2048x3072/00179a5df88dc3ab90e64bda4c651006de058c8d.png) <3  
> this was inspired by one of my favorite artists, [@litarnes](https://www.instagram.com/litarnes/?hl=en)
> 
> [[For Someone - Flora Cash]](https://open.spotify.com/track/0SYtY0PKLVjveE5czNOYmt?si=u4iz4f0jT0yf8IkS0PyP5w)  
> The [music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0u-7RCnytQ) for this song is really cute too <3


	13. Mama

“I’m sorry.”

Mama sat on the ground, level with his body. His arms were akimbo, one hand resting on the edge of the divan closest to her. Though she had no surface to rest her arm on, she hovered a hand over his. 

What did she have to lose by telling him? Why hold onto her secrets for any longer? 

“I won’t be able to keep my promise to you,” she began, her voice unsteady. “I couldn't visit you because I’m trapped. I can’t go anywhere. Ellie—our baby. She’s a BT. The ties that bind her to this place bind me too. But I would give up _anything_ to see you again. To hold your hand, hug you. Steal your glasses when you’re at the Beach...

“To tell you how much I love you.”

She paused. It wasn’t brought on by hesitation or uncertainty, but by the way the words had sounded to her ears, effortless, natural, like she had spoken them before. As she watched him, tears stung her eyes. He would never hear her words. He could already be gone, decided that the Beach he was on would be his last. 

For once, he might not come back. 

“I love you,” she persisted. “I know I don’t have any right to say that, because after this...you will never forgive me. But this is the only way I know how to save you. To not let you die. I know you’re not dead. I know you’ll be back. You have to come back.

“I lost Lockne. I’m not losing you.”

Mama closed her eyes, flicked her wrist and ended their call. She stood in the darkness of her lab, which reminded her so much of his, and all at once her emotions flooded her body, her mind, her heart. 

The heart that would soon be his—or had always been.

#### •••

Mama held Sam’s cuff link in her hands. Ellie was asleep. She tugged at their cord gently, held the hook up to the dimmed lights. The gold caught what little light remained in the room, effusing it with an ironic shade of sanctity. The mobile overhead had stopped spinning; the whales and waves completely still, aware of what was to come. Mama shut her eyes and hummed the child’s favorite lullaby. 

She needed to do this. She had to do this, not only for herself, but for Sam. For Lockne. Heartman. Ellie was asleep. All she had to do was swing the hook, cut the cord, set them free. Swing the hook, cut the cord, set them free, so Ellie could finally sleep.

She could finally bury her child.  
Mama cried and swung the hook down.

“Mama, it’s Deadman—“  
She crumpled to the ground at his voice. Her hands clutched the cord, uncut, the hook plunged in the palm of her right hand. Mortified, the doctor ran up to her.

“Mama! No…”  
“I can’t do it,” Mama muttered, yanking the hook out. There was no blood. Deadman’s eyes widened at seeing her remove it without so much as a flinch. “I can’t. I can’t.”  
“Do what? What happened?”  
“I built it for Sam. It only works with his blood. I—I took some when he came over yesterday. It cuts BT umbilical cords. Sends them back to the other side. It—it should, right? It should...”  
“Are you okay? I could—”  
“No. No, it’s...you don’t have to.”  


She shifted to stand but stayed on the ground instead. Deadman sat down with her, his eyes going from Ellie to her unscathed palm.

“I haven’t been outside in three years,” Mama lamented. “Sam is the first person I’ve seen in a while. When he came by, I realized how much of the world he gets to see. At least, what’s left of it. I know he must feel so alone, but he’s...free. I think that’s why he left the first time. Why he cut himself off from everyone. Maybe he feels trapped too.”  
Mama rubbed her own cuff link and stared up at Ellie.  
“She doesn’t deserve this life. She deserves to be free. The only way I can do that is if I cut the cord connecting us.”  
“Mama, there has to be another way. If you do that, you could,” he moved closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You could die and trigger a voidout.”  
“My body doesn’t necrotize. No necrosis, no voidout. Ellie didn’t save me. I saved her. Deadman, I...I died at the hospital that day,” she murmured. “But my organs, my bones, my cells. My _heart._ Everything is still intact.  


“I’m a walking organ bank.”

At this, she stood and walked to her lab bench. On the wall, she projected a photo of her and Heartman wearing each other’s glasses on the expedition. “He said he’s been on the donor list for eight years. He’s dying. And he...wants to die on the Beach. I can’t let that happen. I can help him. I _have_ to help him.” Mama placed her hand on her heart. “ _Please._ ”

Deadman looked between her and Heartman, then at the cuff link that was still in her hand. The creases on his forehead slowly deepened. Finally, he brought his gaze to the ceiling. He closed his eyes and laced his fingers together. 

“He said the same thing to me. ‘I am already dead.’ Last I checked, _I_ am the one they call Deadman. Even if Heartman accepts your heart...living with another person’s organs. It changes you.” He clutched the stethoscope around his neck tighter, then turned away. “I can’t, in good conscience, allow you to go through with this. I’m sorry, Mama.”

“C’mon, Deadman,” Mama stood in front of him. “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for donors. Let me do this. Let me help people like you. Let me be _useful_ for once.”  
“You _are_ useful. Sam isn’t the only one with access to your design data. Everyone at Bridges does. You’ve all helped us, one way or another. There are other ways to help people that don’t involve so much sacrifice. I know you want to help, Mama. You want to take care of people. To save them from their sorrows. I understand, I really do. That’s why I became a doctor.  


“You can’t take care of other people if you don’t take care of yourself first,” he said. “I’m sure Heartman will say the same. If he finds out that you’re planning to give up your life for him...he will never agree to it.”  
“I know,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “That’s why I’m only telling you. He can’t know about this.”  
“Mama...” he looked conflicted, and she wished she could hug him. She had already made up her mind.  


As they stared at each other, a tacit understanding passed between them. She saw his expression shift from disbelief to one of quiet determination. The silence settled, and with it the realization that their conversation—their friendship as they knew it,—was coming to a bittersweet end.  
“I trust you,” Mama whispered. “More than anyone. If there was another way, I would’ve taken it. But there isn’t one.”  


He nodded slowly. The tears he had been keeping at bay finally flowed over. He took a moment to compose himself, and she waited. At length, she cried with him, the gravity of the situation bearing down on her. She never meant to bring anyone else into this. But as she thought everything through, it became clear that she couldn’t do it alone.

“When Sam gets here. I’ll ask him to cut the cord for me,” she said, at length. “To take me home, to Lockne. After that...will you make sure my body—my heart— stays with Heartman? Please, Deadman.” 

He threw his arms around her holo, and she smiled over his shoulder, hugging him back. 

“I will. Deadman’s honor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Broods - Medicine]](https://open.spotify.com/track/4GLU4Wa29upEfOtjBGmimZ?si=TmeHMVtxShOGUWbou4QJGQ)


	14. Lockne

Lockne held a box of holotapes in her arms. On top was a neatly arranged bouquet, all white lilies and roses, save for a single stalk of sandalweed jutting out of the middle.

The city cemetery held no bodies beneath its grounds. Lockne felt “memorial” would’ve been a more fitting name, but nearly everyone she had met in Mountain Knot called it a cemetery, Aaron included. The grounds were almost completely flat, the grass kept perpetually trimmed by an autonomous bot that roamed about the holomarkers, unaware that the blue figures which materialized before it were long gone. Distant markers burned then disappeared like lost stars in the night. 

She stopped by the marker that held all the names they’ve lost to the tar. The marker itself was only recently erected, initiated by the city’s personal corpse disposal team. Lockne couldn’t help but think that there was only a single marker because they were running out of room to accommodate all the dead. She plucked the sandalweed out of the bouquet, leaving the lilies and roses at the marker before bowing her head and walking away.

Then she went to see Daniel. 

She came to a stop at the small marker, and there he was, in the same outfit he wore to propose to her: a navy blue Bridges jumpsuit, pants cuffed at the ankles. By his scuffed shoes were the words, _Beloved member of Bridges. Loving fiancé,_ and an epitaph. 

_I may not choose when I leave, but I will choose when I stay.  
Even if I am not with you, I will always be among you.  
_

Daniel was a man who was keenly aware of his own mortality, who knew that each day of the expedition could’ve been his last. His smile looped endlessly. She timed her words in as if he could hear her. Some part of her knew that he could, somehow. 

“I met a sweet little girl a few weeks ago. Her name was Madeline. She gave me this,” Lockne set the sandalweed and holotapes down, and with them, the small bracelet. “You would love her. I think Målingen would’ve, too. 

“And there’s...” Lockne found herself smiling a little wider. “He’s a goofball. But he’s, um, smarter than he looks. He’s not as good with animals like you are. There was this funny thing with a deer and we,” she trailed off, smiling at the grass as she ran her fingers through her hair. “But we didn’t. I couldn’t. I wanted to—but I felt. I _feel_ so lost...

“I don’t know what to do. Whenever I’m with him, I keep thinking about you but I’m actually...happy. I’m really happy. I haven’t felt this happy in so long and I just want to—” she dropped her smile and looked past him, into the darkness. “I want to run away. I’m scared. I’m _so_ scared.”

She sat down on the cold grass, folding her legs beneath her. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready. Will I ever be?”

At this, Daniel’s holo flickered. His expression had reset, and he smiled again. Lockne stared into his eyes, willing his holo to speak to her, to say something. She sat so still that the projector blipped off without warning. 

Slowly, Lockne raised a hand to reactivate the marker, but relented.  
“Goodbye,” she murmured.


	15. Mama

_Five months into the Second Expedition._

For as long as Mama knew him, Heartman was not a man of few words. His AED had spoken more words to her than he had the entire day. They had made a pitstop a few miles outside of Mountain Knot, for a procedure that he had scheduled two months prior. Something about replacing the valves in his heart. 

They drew closer to the edge of the midwest. Tundras stretched over the landscape ahead. Grassy hills mingled with snowy mountain peaks, and tree lines marked the boundaries between worlds. Mama needed more frequent breaks. The sneaker was on the other foot now, and she asked Heartman to slow down every now and then. He walked quickly for someone who had a weak heart.

“ _Five minutes remaining._ ”  
“Heartman,” she called after him. He had walked some five feet away before finally stopping.  
“...Hmm? Oh. Sorry.”  
She finally caught up to him, panting, “You haven’t...said much since your surgery.” He kept his eyes on the ground, as if he had dropped something.  
“I just...I’ve a lot on my mind.”  
He trailed off, distant. They stood at the base of a hill, the afternoon sun down to its final sliver in the horizon, making their cuff links glow a brighter blue. She longed to figure out what was on his mind on her own. She couldn’t read his mind like she could Lockne’s.  


At some point Heartman brought his gaze up to her. He took a few steps in her direction and let her see his eyes—a shade of blue that wasn’t far off from their cuff links and just as bright, if not brighter. She saw it. The flicker of sadness that she had seen in her sister’s eyes so many times before. 

Their odradeks shot out from behind their shoulders and blinked due north.

He froze. Held up a finger. It couldn’t be right. All their paths were mapped out in advance, avoiding any and all BT territories marked by the team ahead of them. Could they have missed something?  
His AED interrupted her thoughts. She grabbed his arm, tugging him away. “Let’s turn back. _Now._ ”  
Their odradeks continued to blink, aimed in front of them. Heartman hadn’t moved from his spot when the blinking turned to spinning.  
“Mama, you—you have to leave.”  
“Not without you.”  
“ _One minute remaining. Please hold onto something secure._ ”  


He took her face in his hands. He smiled briefly before his gaze flickered to her stomach.  
“Think about your child,” he said, voice shaking. “ _Please_ go. It’s—it’s alright. I’m not afraid.”  
Mama shook her head. She could feel his hands trembling against her face. She grabbed his wrists, her gaze sharpening.  
“What about _your_ family? Your wife and child?”  
He pursed his lips and said, “They’re already dead.”  


Mama loosened her grip on his wrists as his hands fell to her shoulders. An apology had formed in her mind, then, but it wasn’t the time to grieve. He finally let her pull him away. She activated her odradek, picked the softest spot it had marked and guided him there, where she laid his head against her lap.

“I’m not leaving you. I’ll get us out of here. I’ll figure something out.” Mama muttered, holding his hand as she spotted for him. She expected his eyes to already be closed, but when she stared down at him, they were still open. He stared with the lifelessness of someone about to die.

“You always do.”  
Heartman smiled before his whole body went limp.  


Mama held his hand tighter as she strained to see in front of her. All she saw were the last rays of sunlight hitting the face of a distant mountain, glazing the peaks in red. It was a small mercy, mother nature giving her a final glimpse of the beautiful world she was about to leave behind. Their odradeks spun wilder as the BT drew near. 

If she were to die here, it was not the mountainside that she wanted to see last. She wanted to see the face of her partner, her friend—her brilliant and kind friend with a heart unlike any other. She wanted his face to be the last thing she would ever see before she died.

Mama stifled her tears as she draped her arms around him, covering his body with hers. Then she waited. And waited. 

With bated breath, she dared to look behind her. She didn’t know if her and Lockne could see BTs. But there it was: the faint, dusty outline of an umbilical cord. She followed it as it winded across the darkening sky.

At the end was the form of a baby, curled into a ball.

“You’re...you’re just,” she let out a relieved laugh. It stirred and let out a soft cry.  
Mama kept a hand over her belly as she stood, approaching the cord. She reached her finger out to the child timidly. Mama could see its small head tilting sideways.  
“You won’t hurt us, won’t you?”  
The baby cooed quietly. Mama briefly checked on Heartman behind her.  
When she looked forward, the BT baby was gone. On her finger was a small black handprint.  


Mama stayed by Heartman’s side. The handprint had faded, the BT with it. Darkness settled all around them, turning the mountainside into flat shadows, their white ridges barely visible in the moonlight. 

The longest three minutes of her life finally passed. Heartman’s defibrillator cut through the silence, and he came back.

“Don’t worry,” Mama rushed to his side, calming him down. “We’re safe.”  
He hadn’t even caught his breath when he sputtered, “I’m sorry, I—I almost got you and your child killed. I should’ve just left the expedition after—“  
“Heartman. It’s okay.”  
“No. I don’t think it is.” He sighed, then walked away a bit.  


“Do you think I don’t know why no one wanted to partner with me on this expedition? Why the Director keeps track of my log times, why he assigned you to me? Why Deadman keeps calling me every couple of hours?” he sighed deeply. “All my life I’ve just been a burden to my family. My friends...

“I can’t bear the thought of losing another person I care about because of my damned heart.”

Eventually, Mama joined him. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “None of this is your heart’s fault. It’s not your fault,” she assured. “Die-Hardman didn’t assign me to you. I chose to be with you.”  
“Over your sister?”  
“I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to be with the most brilliant mind of Bridges," she said.  
A smile tugged at his lips. They stared up at the empty night sky together.  
“I’m sorry, Heartman. About your family.”  
He said nothing for a while. Then, quietly, “Thank you. For everything.”


	16. Lockne

The following day, Lockne went to visit Aaron at the Distro Center. He was speaking to someone at the terminal and didn’t hear her enter. She peeked at the cameras. As soon as she saw who was on it, she got between him and the terminal.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, _Bridges?_ ”  
Sam Porter Bridges was barely taken back. Even as a staticky holo, she could see what he was holding: the Q-pid she developed with Målingen.  


Aaron backed away, then muttered, “Lockne, he’s—”  
“We want no part of your chiral network or the UCA,” Lockne said to Sam, quickly.  
“That voice. Is that you, Mama?”  
How long had it been since she heard that nickname? If Sam knew, that meant they were in contact with one another. Did she send him?  
“Uh, you hit your head there, Mama?” he continued, trying to get a better look at her. She tugged her coat collar higher, covering half her face.  


Lockne felt Aaron’s eyes on her. She caught his gaze, which held no sharpness; only dull disappointment that gave her brief pause. He mouthed her name, a silent plea for her to reconsider. And she almost did. She held his gaze like always, in hallways and meetings and quiet moments together, before their kiss, before she had fallen in love with him. 

She loved him—oh, she loved him. She loves him.

“I’m not yours,” Lockne finally whispered. Then, to Sam, “And yours is no kind of mother.”  
“All right—enough games, Mama.”  
“Mountain Knot City is telling you and the UCA to take a hike,” her voice rose a pitch. His stubbornness reminded her of Målingen. It infuriated her. _He_ infuriated her. Sam left them without a goodbye years ago. What was stopping him from doing it again?  


“We didn’t ask for you to come and tell us how to live our lives. We’ll decide that for ourselves, thank you very much. All we want from you is the occasional delivery. Nothing else.”  
“So you speak for the city?”  
“That’s right,” Lockne paused, wanting to turn to Aaron just then. She kept her eyes forward. “I’m in charge. The name’s Lockne.”  
“I need to talk to you. You’re a technician, right?”  
“Look, go home. And don’t come back,” she fought the sudden tears that wanted to form in her eyes, then. She was talking to Sam. Just Sam.  
“Listen to me, dammit! I need your help!”  


“You need _my_ help?” she shot. “Where were you when part of my city was about to get swallowed up by tar? Where were you when my fiancé, who was a member of Bridges one, died in a terrorist attack? Where were you when I lost—" 

She stared at the package on the conveyor belt and clenched her fists, hard. “By the time you got here with that antimatter, thirty-two people are dead. We don’t need your help, Bridges. You’re only making things worse.”

With that, she ended the call.  
“Lockne…” The disappointment had drained from Aaron's face; all that was left was disbelief. Normally, she wouldn’t care. But she stopped in front of him, hugging her elbows.  
“That was Sam. Sam Porter Bridges, who came all this way to bring us into the network and deliver the antimatter bomb,” he said, his voice slowly crescendoing.  
“And you turned him away, just like that!”  
“You—at the forest. When you kissed me? It was to change my mind about the network, wasn’t it?” she scoffed. “Congratulations. Your shitty plan almost worked.”  


She walked past him. Her throat swelled with a want to cry, yell, swear—do all three at once. Aaron’s voice was loud enough to hear over the conveyor belts. She should’ve kept walking. She should’ve gone out the door. But again, she stopped.  


“Lockne—wait! Hold on, wait a goddamn minute!” he ran to a stop in front of her. “I kissed you that night because I wanted to,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted to for a very long time. Not because I was trying to change your mind about the damn network.”  
“Bullshit...” she muttered, avoiding his gaze.  
“I’m telling you the truth! I wanted to kiss you. I’ve _wanted_ to kiss you for god knows how long. I just—I didn’t know the right time. I kept waiting for the right time and I realized that there’s never gonna be one. Then you found me yesterday, and we were alone and I almost died, and you— you looked—“ he trailed off. His eyes told her everything. “I knew...I knew I wouldn’t get another chance like that again.”  
Aaron stared at her softly, his hand almost reaching for hers. She watched the conflict playing out on his face, knew that he was trying to find some way to end this amicably.  
“You really think I would do that? Kiss you to change your mind?” he finally asked. “C’mon, Lockne. You think that little of me? No—you think that little of _everyone._ Bridges. Me. Sam. Your own sister."  
“ _Don’t._ ”  
“I get it now. Why you hate the network so much. Why expect people to connect with each other across the country, when some of ‘em don’t even know how to connect with the people around them? The ones right in front of ‘em, ones they see every day, live right next to?  


“You’re right. It is bullshit.” He threw his chewed-up hat on the ground and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Playlist for Twins (Part One)]](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KuM8hcLkBFSuMsWxbvuif?si=RyvA97GzTdi0i7BeJBwUZQ)   
>  [[Playlist for Oceans (Part Two)]](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KuM8hcLkBFSuMsWxbvuif?si=rUJpkAq3QZuuMV8AGS7w9w)
> 
> I'll be working on the last part in the next coming weeks~ it will be called ["Starlight,"](https://open.spotify.com/track/05ho1OFzZj2yGMcEGPKtCF?si=5_qj1RS7Q56GNN8wtuYmew) a beautiful song by 92914!   
> Until next time <3


End file.
